Room temperature coherent manipulation of single-spin qubits in silicon carbide with a high readout contrast

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates room temperature coherent control of single-spin qubits in silicon carbide with high readout contrast and photon count rate, comparable to diamond NV centers, enabling advanced quantum device applications.

Contribution

It reports the first high-contrast, room temperature single-spin manipulation in silicon carbide, with detailed analysis of defect levels and decay paths.

Findings

Achieved ~30% readout contrast at room temperature

Observed coupling between defect and nuclear spins

Provided theoretical explanation for high contrast

Abstract

Spin defects in silicon carbide (SiC) with mature wafer-scale fabrication and micro/nano-processing technologies have recently drawn considerable attention. Although room temperature single-spin manipulation of colour centres in SiC has been demonstrated, the typically detected contrast is less than 2%, and the photon count rate is also low. Here, we present the coherent manipulation of single divacancy spins in 4H-SiC with a high readout contrast (-30%) and a high photon count rate (150 kilo counts per second) under ambient conditions, which are competitive with the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond. Coupling between a single defect spin and a nearby nuclear spin is also observed. We further provide a theoretical explanation for the high readout contrast by analysing the defect levels and decay paths. Since the high readout contrast is of utmost importance in many applications of quantum technologies, this work might open a new territory for SiC-based quantum devices with many advanced properties of the host material.